'NEVER ALONE' Location Shots

The shots show the image of one of the co-stars who feature in “Never Alone”. These images show the area surrounding the underground car park. The idea was a woman becoming vulnerable in a dark, underground environment as she and the audience, are unable to find out the person who is lurking in the background. The underground car park was originally used in our storyboard but this became unavailable due to our time to film the sequence. Showing an urban setting, this could leave the audience to suggest the type of plots which could be associated with the woman featured in the images.The first image denotes a close-up of a woman walking down stairs looking straight ahead. She is wearing smart yet casual clothing consisting of a grey blazer jacket, navy floral top, navy jeans and black heels accompanied with a black bag. This suggests the status if the woman as it deprives a common stereotype of women being able to spend time on their appearance. The second and third image denotes close-ups of the woman’s feet establishing the movement towards the car park. This acts as establishing shots as it leaves the audience settled to the environment and displays the overall mood of the scene. The last image denotes the woman walking down the stairs which could connote her vulnerability towards her surroundings. This would have been portrayed in the car park where both images would have been linked leading for tension to occur as the audience would wonder about the cause of her innocence and how this would be portrayed.

Planning Preliminary Match Cut exercise with Storyboard

THE SIGN

This exercise was used to successfully create match cuts which were delusional to the human eye to make a simple situation become more suspicious and suspenseful. In this clip, we chose to use the idea of a teacher and pupil conversation to show this. By using match cuts in a thriller, it allows the audience to follow every step of each character in terms of expressions, emotions as well as in some cases, hear their opinion on a particular topic. This, therefore enables the audience to connect with the plot and engage with the character.

The clip begins with a woman typing on the computer taken from a high angle shot to position the audience with the setting followed by a close-up of her nails to reinforce this. A cut is used to display a pupil outside the door knocking for permision to be let in. From this scenes, the audience is aware that the woman is a teacher where the audience is left waiting to see what happens.

A match cut is used here to show the pupil knocking on the door to the audience being placed inside the classroom with a close-up of the door handle turning. This match cut is used to portray the statuses of the two characters, where in thrillers, this could display as suspense. A panning shot is used to show the pupil giving some note to the teacher, where this can be seen in full detail with a close-up of the teacher recieving it. From this, we can see the apprehension of the pupil giving the note which could suggest to the audience that something bad is going to happen. There are a series of match-cuts to address the conversation where the audience is able to see the overall mood and the feelings they have. At the end of the clip, we can hear the diegetic sound of a door knock where the audience is left wanting to see the teacher's reaction. This creates suspense as the door knock is placed in the same time as the teacher waits to hear a response. This idea could be used in thrillers to create tension where it leads the viewer to think that something is going to happen and could change the mood of the scene.

In general, I think 'The Sign' captured the match-cut shots carefully to where the clip has a gradual flow in terms of the feelings of the characters. It creates suspense and tension easily and allows the audience to grasp onto the storyline.

Prelim Task: Bag Swap

Prelim Task: Match Cut (The Sign)

Rough Cut

Intro to Cameras & Health and Safety Tutorial

In this tutorial, I was introduced to the JVC video camera and its equipment and was shown how to use and preserve the equipment safely. The battery had to be installed in the bottom half of the camera underneath the eyepiece and the memory cards had to be inserted into the slots marked A and B. For a short piece of footage, one memory card is needed. To turn on the camera, the dial on the right hand side near to the eyepiece needs to be pressed and facing 'On'. This allows the camera to load in shooting mode where the symbol of the memory card can be seen at the top of the screen. This enables the user to know where the data is going to be saved when viewing the footage on the computer. To be able to shoot footage with good picture quality, the camera needs to be functioned to auto-focus. This allows the subject to be easily captured and highlighting the location however, using auto-focus can create a blurred effect which could be used to make the characters feel paranoid in terms of a psychological thriller. 'User 1' is used to create this effect and in the viewing screen, it allows you to see whether the objects are in focus where the audience is supposed to focus on. This is shown in red outlines and by clicking off 'User 1', you can see your image in full colour.
Above the eyepiece, on the right hand side, the zoom function is placed in order for the user to zoom in and out. The viewing screen allows the user to view the footage that had been filmed as well as showing the footage as it is being filmed. To change from the shooting mode to the video library, the 'Media' library function can be pressed.
The tripod is an equipment which can be used to keep the camera in place where the footage needs to be kept steady. This can be used to shoot scenes where the subject is far away and can also be featured to create tracking and panning shots. This is used because the movement is made swiftly and clean to provide a smooth effect. However, when using this equipment, it's essential for users to make sure that the tripod is placed away from the public so that people can't trip over it.

When handling with the camera, the lens should never be touched and when not in use, the lens cover should used. While raining, an umbrella should be used to protect the camera as it can protect the quality of the image.